ignite a spark, light a fire
by LivingDaLife
Summary: She never spoke a word, and so no one could tell that the colors were slowly fading away before their very eyes. Slightly canon. OC. Dark themes, some language, rated for safety.
**A/N Hey y'all, this is my first SAO fanfic. Honestly, there's just something about this anime that's just like-what? What're you going to do with it? There's already a canon pairing, enough action, and blah blah blah-there's not much else you can really do with it, but I just wanted to create a little one-shot about something that I don't think was really addressed personally-red players. I mean, I know that red players were portrayed as the "villains" in the anime, but this won't be the first time that I've taken a character portrayed as a villain and turning that viewpoint upside down, and the same with heroes.**

 **So, please do enjoy. Sort of canon, sort of not.**

 **Warnings: dark themes (obviously, I mean, RED PLAYER, in SAO, hello?), some swearing, general pubescent angst, OC**

 **Disclaimer: really? Microwaves? I'm sorry, but there's gotta be a more logical explanation for that. But what do I know-I'm just a random fanfic writer/stranger who may not even have any real education to base her doubts upon.**

* * *

People said that it was the thrill.

There was just something about the adrenaline that pumped through your veins (whether real or virtual, what did it matter?) that was _addicting_. Never knowing what might happen-whether your victim would struggle and scream for hours on end, or calmly accept his/her fate, or even throw him/herself into your blade-that unpredictability, that moment between hope and despair, that blurring line between life and death, determination and resignation, humanity and monstrosity-people said that it was that.

The rushing of blood through veins, pumping and reveling in death.

Not for her.

For her, it was the colors. The pretty colors that were released the second the player's eyes widened-when he/she exploded into a starburst of blue and green and white, blowing away in tiny, perfect little diamonds like petals in the breeze, except these were infinitely _better_ , because with them, she could look up at the sky, and when she did, she saw a melting pot of vibrant shades and textures, when on that day, all she saw was red, red and black, and terror-her own, and other's.

Indeed, it was the colors that drew her back, time and time again, and it wasn't long before her cursor was the striking red she had hated so much, but it was okay, it was okay-

The colors were worth it.

* * *

There were other people like her, but they were, in essence, different.

They killed, all for different reasons.

There was a boy, with cat eyes and fleeting smirks, who told her once, once while sharpening his wickedly curved sword, that he loved their eyes, trembling and screaming with agony, despair, _pain_. He remembered every single pair of eyes he had ever seen, even as he bled the life out of them.

There was a girl, with red lips and slender fingers, who never liked to dirty her hands, but that didn't stop the wicked smile from curving her lips when telling her that she killed for the laughs-"Laughing Coffin," what a fitting name for her. She remembered every single shake her body gave, even as her victims' own bodies stopped forever.

There was a boy, with a black hood and shaded eyes, who never spoke with anyone, except for her. She met him once, in a dirty ditch on Floor 27-she had seen him before, ghosting in and out of crowded areas, unnoticed, but never truly talked with him until that afternoon. He told her a small tale, a six-word story, "For sale: beer bottles, empty space." He remembered their last words, to mothers who would never see them again, to fathers who would never love them again, to friends who would never hug them again.

There was a girl, with a hundred faces and skimpy clothing, who told her once, once while sucking face, that she loved their faces, twisting and turning the way she wanted them to, a puppeteer gently arranging her crying marionettes just so, lovingly and adoringly. Yes, she remembered every expression, pulling at dead eyes and slack jaws.

There were so many, and all of them had different stories, different ideas, different reasons, but none of them were _her's_.

When she told them her reason, they laughed and walked away.

* * *

She met him, one day.

Kirito-"The Black Swordsman," he was called. By his friends, his enemies, by people who didn't give a fuck about who he was or what he meant.

And she realized that that was the way he liked it.

She met him, and she remembered him. She was a loner, a solo player-well, PK-er, but that didn't bother her as much as it did him. Still, she met him one day, and she remembered him.

He wouldn't remember her.

He saw her cursor, saw its permanent red ugliness, drew himself straight with narrowed eyes, and she knew what he wanted to say, knew what he was going to say, knew that she didn't want to hear what he wanted and was going to say, so she ran.

Ran from him, concealing herself as best as she could (and she could do so very well, having chosen her specialization specifically on that day so long ago, but for different reasons rather than for the ones that were why she was grateful right now) as she fled. She was sure that he was going to chase after her (for sure, for sure, he was Kirito the Black Swordsman, of course he would), but he never did.

Even until now, she still has no idea whether it was because she was better than him, or if it was because he let her go.

* * *

And then she met him again-this time, on a battlefield.

Bodies flew everywhere, and this time, they weren't created by only PK-ers. She saw the explosions, the stardusts that she loved so much, except there was far too much red-from everyone, even _him_.

Red, everywhere, but that didn't stop her from destroying player after player, whirling in between ranks and dancing around blades, never staying in one place for more than a second, never distinguishing between true red players and "temporary" red players.

She laughed; it was a mad, tremulous laugh lost in the thousands of other sounds echoing throughout the cavern, because once your cursor turns red, even if it fades and bleeds into green eventually, it will never glow the way it did before.

And she left before the Crusade was over, but not before she heard him speak for the first time-cold, icy tundra wind that chilled her to her already frozen marrow, when he walked away and turned his back on that Laughing Coffin member.

 _And they weren't laughing anymore._

* * *

She had no wish to return to the real world.

Her mother had left her behind, for a man only one year older than her own daughter. The woman hadn't even been bothered to say goodbye, not even one last glance before she moved halfway across the world to Florence.

Her father had left her behind, for the empty bottles that now littered the stained and dirties floors, and the moans that echoes throughout an empty apartment even when he _knew_ that she was in her room, tucked into a tiny ball in the corner of the room, shivering because the heater was broken and there was no money, nothing left, to fix it.

 _"For sale: beer bottles, empty space."_

Her brother had left her behind, for a better life, with a prettier lady, with a new sister, so different from his _broken_ and _lifeless_ old one. And she realized that she really didn't care, even as she sat in the center of his empty room for hours on end, as if he would open the door at any time and give her a pack of crayons, like he had done every day on her birthday for the past eleven years. (Five years and he never did, and maybe he never will again.)

Her friends had left her behind, for new gossip, new opportunities. You see, no one wanted to hang around the charity case, because eventually, the charity case wouldn't be a charity case anymore-instead, she became a burden, an anchor pulling both her and the ship down, and they didn't like it, so they cut her loose and let her sink to the bottom of the ocean, tangled in chains that would never _ever_ come off.

She was left behind, time and time again, but she never once cried because she wanted to be _strong_ , she wanted to believe that she was _better_ than that, but when everyone seems hell bent on ignoring your existence, it's hard to pretend, to pull on a facade when no one was even _paying attention_ to her, so she stopped, she stopped pretending, stopped pulling, stopped _trying_ , and that was when she found SAO-

Found SAO, and for the first time ever, she was the one who left everyone behind instead of the one who was being left behind.

* * *

The last person she killed was a boy.

He wasn't a smart one, walking around the shady parts of Floor 69, flaunting money with no fucks given, but that was why she took a knife to his face.

To get rid of that ugly pink smirk stretched across his face.

She took her sweet, sweet time. There was no pain, not in this world, but that didn't stop him from screaming, from pleading, because sometimes, the human mind is the worst enemy a person can face.

And when she finally killed him, hardly a speck of blue and white and green diamonds fluttered in the still air, but when she looked up, she saw it-a wave, a breeze of diamonds, more than any she had ever seen before, and she stayed there for an infinity of ticking, unable to tear her eyes away from the glorious rainbow painting itself across the drab landscape.

 _And she was satisfied._

* * *

She woke up in a white room, so strangely different from the darkness that she had been far too accustomed to for her entire life.

It was a jarring experience, to blink and be transferred from a colorful paradise to this bland reality, but like with everything in life, she took it into stride and adapted.

There was no use in dwelling on what was and what could've been.

Her muscles felt like jelly crushed under dead weights-a combination of shaking and flattened that shouldn't exist, but here she was, proving its existence, and there was nothing she could do about it. Her throat was dry, and she had a feeling that is she attempted to open her mouth to speak, nothing but a breathless croak would come out.

She should've felt something. A sense of happiness, maybe, at having escaped the death game (how, she didn't know, but she had an idea, and it involved a boy with black hair and black eyes and a cold, icy tundra wind voice), or trepidation, at having to go back to her life as a worthless piece of trash-"the girl who was left behind" instead of "the girl who left them behind," or even a sense of loss, having left a floating castle in the sky surrounded by colors that weren't present here.

But she didn't. She didn't feel anything, and that was what the doctors and the nurses saw when they came in to check up on her (pull the plug, she thought, when the nurse's hands headed straight for the NerveGear suffocating her face before noticing her open eyes and shifting brain scans).

* * *

Cram school, a community service sentence of four months, and a new family.

Having spent two years or so trapped in a virtual reality, it was no surprise, really, that players had spent more time on figuring out how to stay alive than on education. Of course, the government was then forced to set up cram schools to educate the poor "uncivilized" and "retarded" students (they didn't say it directly, but she could see it, in their eyes, their patronization, their _pity_ ).

It was her brother who had called the ambulance, surprisingly enough-or unsurprisingly. He had come to that dingy old apartment for the first time in five years to celebrate her sixteenth birthday (he didn't bring his wife, of course, because he wanted to pretend that this part of his life was never _his_ in the first place), and upon finding her lying on her back in the tiny, cramped cellar with the NerveGear wrapped snugly around her head, plugged and charged in one of the two only working electrical outlets in the entire place, called the ambulance and the police-to bring his _precious_ baby sister to the hospital and to report her- _their_ , but again, he never wanted to be associated with his _real_ family-father for child abuse, as if he hadn't known what happened behind closed curtains for _years_ now. Maybe she should feel grateful, that his coincidental visit came just in time to "save" her, but maybe she should feel angry, betrayed, because maybe she _wanted_ to disappear, to cease to exist, to decompose into nothing but skin and bones, maybe even further, until nothing remained of her, because that free will, that freedom of choice that she had so ardently pursued, even within the game, was taken away from her the moment he made the choice to call the ambulance.

Of course, such a background prompted the question of how she was able to afford both the game and the fancy NerveGear that cost quite a bit-more than what her father had, definitely more than what she could've possibly had. It didn't take them long to deduce that she was the thief who had stolen from the shelves of one of the most popular game shop chains in Japan, and it didn't take long for the owner of that particular shop to pursue the matter in court, only a few days after she first woke up.

And for once in her life, something went her way-the judge ruled in _her_ favor. She was a minor, she grew up in an abusive setting, _the poor girl just managed to survive a life-or-death game, for goodness's sake, let her have her peace!_

So she was merely given a sentence of four months of community service, which she didn't mind, except for that little twinge of guilt that resounded in her gut-that there were thousands of people who wouldn't be able to experience what she was currently experiencing-breathing.

But she didn't know where that minuscule droplet of remorse in the sea of numbness that was her heart had appeared from, so she easily washed it away with another flood of _I don't give a fuck's_.

Her brother took her in, and his family shouldn't feel new- _he_ shouldn't feel new-but they- _he_ -did. She suddenly had a sister-in-law, and one niece and one nephew, both of who took one look at her-ratty hair and all-before turning away and leaving her behind.

 _And this was only the beginning._

* * *

She had never formed any long-lasting bonds with anyone in the game.

The only person she even bothered to remember was Kirito-whose real name, she still didn't know.

It was strange, this obsession of hers, because it was unfounded. Having met him twice, there was hardly any reason for her to remember him (in fact, both times, he had looked ready to murder-the second more than the first, though), yet she did-she remembered every single detail of him.

But it wasn't infatuation, or adoration, or even admiration. Nor was it love, such a lofty, high-browed ideal that she had never once understood, not back then, and certainly not now, so all she could do was marvel over her sudden interest in something other than herself.

To others, it would seem like a step forward.

To her, it was a fall backwards.

* * *

She found him, and her distinction between her obsession and "love" was further cemented when she felt nothing, not even the smallest of ripples, upon seeing him sitting on a bench, surrounded by a group of people-boys and girls alike who had all been stuck in a death game just a few weeks prior, all who adored him for being their _savior_.

Not her's.

Yet they still laughed, still talked, still played around like the regular teenagers they _weren't_ , because they had two years of their lives taken away from them, burned into diamonds flying in the breeze by a red, syrup man.

Unaffected.

But then again, so was she.

Right?

* * *

Some nights, it was especially hard to sleep, when all she could dream of (nightmares, really) was of colorful explosions painted in blinding light across dark eyelids. And really, it was no surprise to her when she woke with sharp pants and racing heartbeats, legs clamped tightly together, eyes wild and darting around in the suffocating darkness of her room.

She found that she always had to keep the light on; otherwise, she couldn't sleep, couldn't _breathe_ , because the darkness and shadows reminded her so much of not only the game, but also of her old home, where her only companions were Night and Death, two very dear, very vicious acquaintances-not even friends, because to be friends with those two would mean to be inhumane, and she realized, rather late, that she wasn't quite at that point, not like the some of the PK-ers she had known, she hadn't yet forsaken her humanity.

She just wanted to be _happy_.

Was that too much to ask?

* * *

The gaming community had come to life again-this time, around another MMORPG virtual reality game called Alfheim Online-a complete rip-off of SAO, if anyone were to ask her.

But no one did, so she said it to herself one morning, even as she left the house, walked to the closest game store, and slipped the game into her thick hoodie.

She had kept her NerveGear, pretending to throw it away in order to trick her brother and her new family into thinking that she was "safe," but that didn't happen, it never would.

Like it or not, the NerveGear had been a big part of her life, and she wasn't her brother.

Setting up the system, she lay down (she had a bed this time), and began the game.

 _And now she began to remember_.

* * *

Alfheim Online was even prettier than SAO.

That was all she could marvel at as she drew her sword back from the flickering fire and, without a second glance, vanished from sight. If she had been in any other game, she would've made sure absolutely obliterate every last trace, but she didn't have that high of a level yet, and besides, that glowing fire was far too pretty to destroy.

All she could do was cover everything about her in the darkness that she so hated in reality and disappear in a flash.

* * *

Some days, she could only bring herself to open her eyes.

She couldn't bear to do anything else, and so she would spend the rest of her day behind locked doors, staring unseeingly up at the ceiling.

Those times, she replayed every single PK she had ever made. She would remember the colors that exploded from their bodies, the colors that tinged the sky, painted the treetops and buildings in scarlet red.

She would realize that she was a _murderer_ , and somehow, that words was able to shake her to her very core because it had only just a few seconds ago seemed like something so very, very far away from where she was, but it wasn't, it wasn't because-

Because _she_ was a murderer.

How many people had died, pierced by sword, fried by microwaves, because of her?

For the first time in a long while, she felt something disturb the icy numbness she had kept so very carefully.

* * *

She was never sure whether he was actually playing the game, but sometimes, she saw an elfin boy who looked a little bit like the boy she had seen back in the old game; however, the name was always different, and she would turn away again, no longer interested.

But then one day, she was darting through the shadows of town (trying to find a good vendor that was selling high quality weaponry for cheaper than dirt prices-the black market, basically), and she saw him-a boy with striking similarity to The Black Swordsman, and, after a few minutes of snooping, the same name. He was following a green-clad, blonde-haired elfin girl, and she merely sent him one last glance before disappearing from that area of the city entirely.

One look at his face, and she had completely lost interest.

* * *

Where had that fire gone? That determination, that rebelliousness, that _spark_ of blazing _color_ she had seen in his eyes an eternity ago, in another world, another reality.

She saw none of that in his eyes in Alfheim Online.

It wasn't in her nature to stop and dwell on why. She had to be on the move, constantly shifting traveling from place to place-to her, it was never an option in the first place, to stop and wonder.

Even for him, she wouldn't do that, so she left him behind to join the milling mass of bodies littered in her wake.

* * *

Her brother always asked her what SAO had been like.

He told her that he just wanted her to open up, to let go of all her worries. Bullshit. He just wanted a pretty little story to tell his lecherous friends, the ones who eyed her up and down when they came to visit every other night, all because two years of "eating" nothing but essentials had reduced her figure into that anorexic one that society seemed to worship, paled her once beautifully bronzed (and purple, and yellow, and black) skin into snow, and taken away her voice (not literally, but she found no reason to speak with cretins).

He wanted a story, but she would never give him one.

But promises were made to broken, her's especially.

 _And she wasn't all too surprised when she came back one day to red and blue sirens._

* * *

First-degree murder.

She was convicted, and this time, no judge would rule in her favor. She saw no pitying glances, no eyes of sympathy.

She was a monster, but that was okay, because she already knew.

The trial was short-there was hardly any evidence attesting against her, nothing except for her "family's" word and the testimonies of some random SAO ex-players she had never seen, but it was greater than the evidence vouching for her, which was nonexistent.

So she was found guilty, and sentenced to a life-long sentence.

She had missed sleeping on stone.

* * *

She didn't know how much time had passed.

In all honesty, jail wasn't as bad as she had been grown up to believe-it was nothing more than a small little room where all she had to do was sit in silence. Any other person would've gone mad by then, but she wasn't any other person, and besides, she was already mad.

At least, according to the people who knew what she had done.

Even if she had tried to tell them why, they wouldn't have been able to understood. There was no way to articulate the beauty that tinged the deaths of the people who had fallen victim to her sword and to microwaves, to articulate it in such a way that someone would understand, would fall in love as well.

Besides, she had no wish to validate herself. There was no such thing as justification, only blame, and she didn't want to blame anyone because there was no beauty, no colors, in such a thing, so she merely shrugged and turned her back on the sneering and leering guards, letting them see as much as they wanted, but never more.

* * *

A boy was moved into the cell next to her's.

It used to belong to another woman, who mumbled in her sleep and went batshit crazy a few days prior, screaming her head off until a guard went in and knocked her out cold. They took her out and the room had been empty until now.

She was laying on her back, feeling the stone dig into her bones, and lazily lolled her head to the side when he was thrown in. She couldn't see him all that well through the bars, from her position, but that didn't bother her. She didn't bother to say anything, but instinctively, her fingers lightly tapped a rhythm on the stone floor.

To anyone else, it would've been easily overlooked, maybe even an unconscious act (and eventually she would decide that it _was_ one, but that she was _happy_ about it) to pass the time-but just like she wasn't any other person, he wasn't anyone else.

 _Scratch. Tap. Tap. Scratch._ Pause. _Tap. Scratch_. Pause. _Scratch. Tap. Tap. Scratch._ Pause. _Tap. Scratch_.

A slight smile pulled at her lips, and she curled up into a little ball, feeling his burning red eyes boring holes into her back.

* * *

Their conversations consisted of only scratches and taps and pauses, but those were more than enough for the two murderers.

He knew her reason, and she knew his. Neither felt sorry for the other, neither felt anything for the other, and they were fine with that.

They both knew that one day, one of them would leave, and that was okay with them.

They were satisfied.

* * *

People said that it was the thrill.

It wasn't, not for any of them, and she proved it when the guards found her pale, anorexic corpse sprawled across the floor-killed in images to gruesome for even those heartless souls to stomach. If it had been the thrill, they should've seen horror painted across her face, heard the laughter of the just as fucked up boy next door, tasted satisfaction at having forcing a _monster_ to commit suicide.

But none of that happened, and it was a message, clear and loud, that all of this-all of _her_ -wasn't just for the thrill.

Yet that didn't stop people from saying that, but it's okay, it's okay-

She didn't want to stop them in the first place.

* * *

 **Wow, that did not turn out the way I expected, but you know what, I love it, and I hope you guys did too.**

 **Anyways, I kept the ending pretty open-ended, like with most of my stories. I like having the reader deciding what happens, so here you are.**

 **Yeah. Peace, see ya next time, hope you liked it!**

 **Never (LivingDaLife)**


End file.
